When Djaelani, 24, first saw one of his videos go viral, he was stunned by the volume of comments, and painstakingly went through them all (and deleted the negative ones). Now there are simply too many to read.

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But one viewer did catch his eye: a woman in Germany who reached out at the end of 2022, and is now his girlfriend. “She found one of my TikToks and messaged me, and it just kind of went along from there,” he says.

For Lim and Djaelani, Dancerush is a social hobby that offers a respite from their office jobs. For others, there is a more competitive side.

Last year, 35-year-old Joshua McKinnon was flown to the US to represent Australia in the Dance Dance Revolution World Championships. The tournament pitted 48 of the world’s best players in a dance-off with a prize pool of $10,000.

McKinnon, who uploads videos of him playing the Dance Dance Revolution machine in Belconnen, Canberra, to YouTube, finished equal 13th.

McKinnon started playing the game in 2005. When the rest of the world grew tired of it and stopped playing, he remained loyal to the original. Of its lingering appeal, he says: “It’s a confluence of great music, a physical activity and then also a really fun game.”

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